The Fels Policy Research Initiative in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania has announced eight collaborative grant recipients. Each will be awarded as much as $15,000 in support of three new working groups and five conferences, designed to further interdisciplinary partnerships.

“This latest round of grants demonstrates that faculty not only want to work together across disciplines to research public policy topics,” Mark Alan Hughes, faculty director for the Penn Fels Policy Research Initiative, said, “but are eager to find ways to ensure their research reaches policymakers.”

The five conferences awarded grants will address a variety of issues related to economic policy, infrastructure, housing in the future, diversity and more:

Penn Design’s John Landis and Vincent Reina will join economics and sociology faculty to blend academics, think-tank researchers, federal policy and program managers, local implementers and community-based advocates to identify and develop new priorities for the next generation of housing policy in the United States.

Dawn Teele, assistant professor of political science in Arts & Sciences, will amass Penn scholars, faculty from other institutions, campaign training program leaders and politicians to better understand what incentives encourage women to seek political office in Nudging Women to Run.

Daniel Hopkins, associate professor of political science, will lead a conference to advance efforts toward integrating the perspectives of social and behavioral science into the City of Philadelphia’s work.